Peyton Manning Comeback Tour Continues

Both of these teams had big prizes on the line, fortunately for the Chiefs and the Broncos they needed the same result to secure them. The 2-13 Chiefs needed to lose to secure the #1 overall pick in next year’s NFL Draft and the Broncos needed to win to secure the #1 seed in the AFC. Denver came in riding a 10-game winning streak behind an explosive offense with a rejuvenated Peyton Manning and a ferocious defense led by Von Miller. The Chiefs are the in polar opposite position of the Broncos and that was clear in the 3-38 ass kicking that the Broncos gave KC on Sunday.

Peyton put on a show throwing for over 300 yards with 3 touchdowns, no interceptions and was never sacked. He found Eric Decker in the end-zone twice for the 2nd week in a row and over the last 3 games Eric Decker has hauled in 21 balls for 377 yards and 5 touchdowns and finished the season with 1064 and 13. Demaryius Thomas had himself a game as well, making a ridiculous one-handed catch in the end-zone and going for 122 yards in the air with 7 receptions. Thomas would finish the season with 1434 yards and 10 touchdowns. On the year there was just an 11 reception difference between Manning’s two favorite targets. Despite the worry about how Peyton may perform after missing football for a year and coming back from 3 neck surgeries on a new team, Mr. Manning had one of his best years in the NFL.

Manning completed 68.6% of his passes, just 0.2% behind his career high, while throwing for a career high 4659 passing yards. He not only threw for yards, he threw for touchdowns, 37 to be exact which is the 2nd most he’s thrown in his career. All while throwing just 11 interceptions, the fewest since the 2006 season. Peyton has had an incredible season and although he took over a team that made it to the playoffs last year, Manning has already secured that his team gets as far as Tebow’s securing a first round bye and home-field advantage throughout. The MVP may likely go to Adrian Peterson or we could have ourselves a 1997 all over again, when Brett Favre and Barry Sanders were co-MVP.

The Chiefs are just god awful and including the blowout loss to the Broncos they have been outscored 23-103. Brady Quinn was 7-16 for 49 yards without a touchdown or interception on Sunday and was sacked 4 times, once by Von Miller bringing his season total to 18.5. As much as KC fans were against Matt Cassel early in the year there was a clear drop off between the two. Each QB started 8 games Cassel completed 58 of his 277 attempts for 1796 yards, 6 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Quinn completed 56.9% of his 197 attempts for 1141 yards, 2 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. Now you see why the Chiefs will be looking elsewhere for their QB of the future. Well at least they have the #1 pick!